


Rose’s Doctor

by bananasandroses (achuislemochroi)



Series: Whofic [29]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Tenth Doctor Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-16
Updated: 2009-09-16
Packaged: 2018-01-24 06:22:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1594796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achuislemochroi/pseuds/bananasandroses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last thoughts of a dying man are of the woman he adores.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rose’s Doctor

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-read by the fabulous [](http://glory-jean.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://glory-jean.livejournal.com/)**glory_jean**.  Quotes in italics from _In Flanders Fields_ by John McCrae.

Rose’s Doctor, that’s who and what he’d become.

_We are the Dead._

He’d been Rose’s Doctor in this incarnation from the very beginning – created in the ashes of a body that was falling apart, disintegrating from the power and the fury of the Time Vortex coursing through him – born out of a love that adamantly refused to die with his previous, worn-out, body.

_Loved and were loved_

And that love had blossomed in the days and months that followed, had grown exponentially as he wallowed exultantly in the knowledge of a cavernously deep emotion that was returned.  He’d had no hope of saving himself from the disaster they’d careened towards, no hope whatsoever of preventing the utter heartbreak that came from losing somebody who’d become far far too important.  Withholding any part of himself from her had been unthinkable, a denial of the depth of his love for her that he couldn’t countenance.

_Short days ago  
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,_

He’d not been able to see anybody but Rose after Canary Wharf.  Hadn’t wanted to try, even.  And Martha, Astrid, Donna, Jenny and River – all of them strong and independent women – had to suffer from his inability to face the fact that Rose was gone.  The months and years that he had had with Rose bled through into the years and decades that followed on, and the grief and pain and _rage_ swallowed him up.  He fixated on the agony of it, let himself drown in it, and consequently it devoured him until the outward shell was the only thing left.  And when she came back to him against all the odds, that outward shell betrayed them both.

_To you from failing hands we throw  
The torch;_

There’s only him left now.  The others are all gone – even Jack, although he doubts that it’s for ever in that case.  Jack has a habit of showing up when he’s least-expected, after all – but he lives, and because of that Rose lives also: for nothing dies until there is nobody left who remembers.

And _oh_ , how he remembers.  Every time he looks in the mirror or looks down at his hands, speaks or so much as sneezes, it brings his memories of _her_ into sharper focus.  The elephantine memory of a Time Lord, simultaneously curse and blessing.

_Take up our quarrel with the foe:_

He’d been able to rein himself in hitherto, despite the desperate longing to see her face again he’d refused to give in.  He’d refused to do what Jack had done and go back into her – _their_ – past just to look at her, primarily because he didn’t trust himself around her.  The depth and strength of his feelings for her hadn’t changed, and he didn’t trust himself to be anywhere near her and not try to change events to suit his purpose, paradox or no paradox.  He was even willing to deal with Reapers, which would have been the least of his problems had he done anything.  He didn’t care.

But now?  He, too, is dying.  And he cannot find it in him to keep himself from seeing her any longer; he wants to see the woman to whom this incarnation belongs (and for whom he created himself) once more with these eyes before he no longer can.

_If ye break faith_

He sees her, lets his eyes gorge on her as he breaks his own rule and looks back, and Rassilon it’s worth it.  Her image is burnt on to the backs of his eyes now, just as it has always been branded on his hearts.  He’s alone.  He’s tired and cold and just waiting for it to be over now, waiting only to see if he can be free of the guilt and the pain and the _longing_ that have characterised his miserable existence for so very long now that he can barely remember the happy times, the times when she and he were carefree and so in love.  Although that’s not completely true, he tells himself as his body starts to change.  He’s grieved her, he’s practically deified her, he’d died for her and he betrayed her.

But the last thing anybody could say of him is that he did not love her.

If anything, he loved her far too much.

  



End file.
